by James Hayman
She led Maggie across a large marble-floored entrance hall to an antique table with a telephone. She picked up the receiver and dialed a number. Maggie waited, drumming her fingers against the side of her leg, listening as the phone rang about ten times before it was finally answered.
“Mr. Jolley?” Boatwright said. “It’s Brenda at the house. I’m afraid I have to ask you to wake Mr. Whitby. There’s a police officer here, a detective, who says she must talk to him immediately. . . . No, I don’t know what it’s about, but she says it’s urgent. . . . That’s right, urgent. . . . Yes, she showed me identification. . . . Okay, fine.”
Mrs. Boatwright pressed the receiver against her chest. “Mr. Whitby’s out on the island. Mr. Jolley says he’ll wake him and ask him to call back immediately.”
“What about Mrs. Whitby?”
“Mr. Whitby will call back.”
“I see.”
Maggie supposed the island Boatwright was talking about was Whitby Island. The family’s private playground. She’d read about it often enough in the society pages but had never laid eyes on the place. She didn’t know anyone else who had either. Not even Shockley.
Not wanting to talk to Whitby with Brenda Boatwright hanging over her, she handed her a card. “Ask him to call my cell phone,” she said. “The number’s right there.” Boatwright relayed the number to Mr. Jolley, whoever he was.
“I’ll be waiting in my car.”
Chapter 28
“YOU SAW THE birthmark,” said Tracy. “That means she had to be naked. At least from the waist down.”
“She was.”
Tracy’s eyes narrowed. “You said she was found by a doctor. You think he did it?”
McCabe shrugged and shook his head. “At this point the old cliché applies, everyone’s a suspect. Specially the last one to see her alive. Specially when it’s a guy who lives in the neighborhood.”
She frowned. “Where?”
“On Quebec. Near North Street.”
“You called him young.”
“Yeah. First-year resident. Probably twenty-six or so.”
“Will you let me interview him?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I’m really good at it.”
“Sorry. No way.”
“Can I at least come up to 109 and watch you talk to him?”
“Negative.”
“Can you tell me his name?”
McCabe shook his head. He’d already said too much. Old affection overwhelming procedural rules. “I’m sorry, no. Tracy, you can’t write about any of this. Or tell anyone any of what I’ve told you. At least not yet.”
He sensed the wheels turning in her head, her investigative reporter instincts kicking in, constructing a story line. McCabe knew Tracy well enough to know she might just find Dean Scott and talk to him on her own. There was really no way he could stop her. At least not legally.
“I’m sorry. I can’t answer any more of your questions. But I do need to ask you some of my own if you can handle it.”
She sat for a minute looking out at the garden. Finally she sighed, “There’s a bottle of bourbon in the kitchen cabinet to the left of the fridge. I’d like you to pour me a large glass with three ice cubes. When you come back out, I’ll try to answer your questions.”
McCabe went to the kitchen, found a glass and a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. Before pouring the drink, he texted Maggie. Tracy notified.
He returned with the drink and handed it to her. She took a sip. “Let’s say this doctor has seen her before.” She spoke softly and slowly, taking deep breaths, as if trying to hold back tears. “Maybe running on the Prom. She did that a lot. Or maybe here in the neighborhood. Walking or driving by. Maybe she’s got the top down on the car. He smiles at her. She smiles back. They talk. Maybe he asks her out. She says no and nothing happens. Then last night she decides, for whatever reason, to come back from the island after the party. Probably a little drunk. Maybe a lot drunk. Ties up at the marina off Fore Street, y’know, near Portland Yacht Services. She starts walking home along the jogging trail. The doctor sees her when she gets to East End Beach. Says hi. Tries to get friendly. Maybe she’s drunk enough to get friendly back. They fool around a little. He pushes things. She tells him to back off. He gets pissed and wham, the bastard goes for her.”
She ties up at the marina? McCabe held up a finger to signal a break.
“Is that how Aimée would have come if she decided to come back from the island? On her own boat? She wouldn’t have taken a ferry or some such?”
“I don’t think so. The boat’s how she usually goes back and forth. It’s not technically hers. It’s one of Edward’s. He’s got half a dozen out there. All sizes. But there’s one she uses most of the time.”
“Would she have taken someone with her? Someone from the party?”
Tracy shrugged. “I guess so. Why not?”
“What kind of boat is it?”
“I don’t know. Just a small white cruising boat. Nothing fancy. Outboard motor. Maybe twenty feet. No cabin. Just a cockpit. You’re thinking she might have brought somebody back to Portland who might have attacked her once they got here?”
“It’s possible. Does she always use the same boat?”
“Pretty much. She likes it because it’s named after her. The Aimée. That makes it her own. I’m told there’s an identical one with her sister’s name on it. The Julia Catherine.”
“And she would have tied up at the Yacht Services marina?”
“Most likely. It’s close by, and Edward owns a couple of slips there.”
McCabe got up. “Excuse me a minute, Tracy. I have to make a call.”
He went back inside and speed-dialed Fortier.
“What do you need, Mike?”
“I need you to send some people down to the marina at Portland Yacht Services. You know? The place off Fore Street? See if they can find a smallish white boat, maybe tied up in a slip, maybe moored. Named the Aimée.”
“Named after her?”
“Yeah.”
“Sail or motor?”
“Outboard. Twenty feet give or take.”
“And we’re looking for this boat because?”
“The victim may have used it to come back from a party on Whitby Island. Could’ve brought somebody with her.”
“The bad guy?”
“If we’re lucky. If we don’t find it at Yacht Services, have people check every other dock and marina in town. Anywhere a small boat can tie up.”
“This one of Whitby’s boats?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then we better also check the private dock at Whitby E&D.”
“If you do find it, have Jacoby’s people go the whole nine yards. Prints. Hair. Fibers. The works. Including blood. Either the victim’s or someone else’s.”
“Someone else being the perp?”
“Like I said, if we’re lucky. And if we’re really, really lucky, maybe we’ll even find the knife he stabbed her with.”
McCabe went back to the porch. Tears were rolling down Tracy’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry I have to put you through this.”
“It’s all right. I want to catch this guy even more than you do. Ask your questions.”
“You called Julia and Aimée half twins,” he said.
“That’s what they are. Born three days apart, same father, different mothers. Me and a woman named Deirdre McClure. I was Edward’s first wife. We’d been married about two years. Deirdre worked for him. Did PR work, which in those days consisted mostly of press releases. He hired her out of a security firm in D.C.”
“How old?” asked McCabe.
“About my age.” Tracy sucked at her cigarette. “Though I didn’t know it at the time, Edward was screwing both of us. Deirdre just physically. Me in every way you can imagine. He got us both pregnant at pretty much the same time.
“I knew nothing about his goings-on till Deirdre showed up at the house one winter day in our mutu
al seventh month. The bell rings. I answer it, and there we are at the door, both out to here. Face-to-face and belly to belly.
“I’d met her once at the office, so I smiled and congratulated her on her pregnancy. Told her Edward wasn’t home. She said she’d come to talk to me, so I invited her in. We went to the living room. I offered her coffee. She asked for tea. I called Brenda Boatwright, who was our housekeeper, and asked her to make a pot.
“Deirdre sits down and starts talking. She skips the prelims and goes right to the main event. Announces loudly enough so even Brenda could hear that she and Edward have been having an affair pretty much since she started at the company two years earlier and that the baby she was carrying was his. I wasn’t surprised by the sex. Only that he’d let it result in a baby. I knew Edward had been fooling around almost from the day I married him. Business trips. Late nights at the office. For all I know, early mornings at the office as well. Remember the old song? ‘When I’m not near the girl I love, I love the girl I’m near.’ Of course you do. You remember every song ever written. Anyway, that was Edward to a T. Always ready, willing and able to schtup any female who was even modestly attractive and could actually walk, talk and spread her legs.
“So there we are. Deirdre sipping her tea ever so demurely on one of the Whitby family’s eighteenth-century silk damask chairs. She tells me she loves Edward and wants to marry him.
“ ‘Really?’ I said, frankly a little surprised. ‘And how does Edward feel about marrying you?’
“ ‘The same. He loves me too.’
“ ‘You’re sure of that?’ I ask.
“ ‘I’m sure.’
“ ‘Well, don’t expect any money out of the deal. The Whitby attorneys will write a prenup that’s tighter than . . . well, I don’t want to get vulgar.’
“ ‘I don’t care about the prenup,’ she said. ‘It’s Edward I love, and not his money.’
“ ‘The attorneys will be relieved to hear that,’ I said.
“ ‘Edward wants us to get married just as soon as he can arrange a divorce. I would like the wedding to take place before our baby is born.’
“ ‘And why is that?’ I asked. ‘So you can walk down the aisle in maternity white?’
“ ‘No,’ she said, placing the Royal Doulton teacup back on the silver tray. ‘So our baby can be born in wedlock.’
“ ‘Ah,’ I replied, ‘you’d rather my child be the illegitimate bastard and not yours?’
“ ‘Edward won’t renounce either of his children.’
“ ‘That’s a comfort,’ I told her. ‘And just what, may I ask, is the purpose of this visit, Deirdre? I’m sure it’s about more than just giving me fair notice of my impending dismissal as Mrs. Edward V. Whitby?’
“ ‘Yes, actually . . .’ and the bitch actually had the gall to say this, ‘I just wanted to get a look around the house. Give me enough time to order the fabrics and furnishings for the nursery so it’s ready by the time my baby comes.’
“That’s when I kicked her ass out the front door. Anyway, Aimée was born first, on April twenty-third. Julia three days later. Edward and I agreed on joint custody, with Edward paying a fair amount for childcare and all of Aimée’s education. He’s actually way too generous with her. Gives her anything she asks for. And a lot of things she doesn’t. Edward loves all women, but I always get the feeling the one he loves most, in the true sense of the word love, is his beautiful eldest daughter.”
“Tell me about Julia. What’s she like?”
“She’s pretty enough. Also a good student, I’m told. And a talented actress. I saw her in the senior play this year in the role of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar, and she was really very good. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. But it’s Aimée who’s the gorgeous one. She inherited the Whitby looks. Much more like her father than me. Julia, on the other hand, looks like her mother.”
“Was Aimée involved with any boyfriends at the moment?” McCabe asked.
“Give me a minute, would you?”
McCabe nodded and watched his old friend take a series of deep breaths while staring at her garden for what was more like two or three minutes.
“Okay, sorry,” she finally said. “What was your question?”
“Did Aimée have any current boyfriends?”
Another deep breath. Another sigh. “Probably. But she didn’t bring guys home. Or give me any names.”
That was too bad. Knowing who her current boyfriend or boyfriends were could prove important. He studied her. A top-notch investigative reporter who’d just lost her only child. “Tracy, you’ve got to promise me one thing. I’ll keep you as informed as I can, but please, please don’t start trying to find the killer on your own. If something important occurs to you, just let me or Maggie know. Leave the investigating to us.”
“McCabe, I won’t get in your way. That’s a promise. But here’s another promise. If you don’t find the creep who did this and put him away; if, after all your efforts, this remains an open investigation, all bets are off. I’m pretty damned good at this game. And I won’t rest until I find him. And when I do, I may kill him myself.”
Before McCabe could respond, his phone rang. Bill Fortier. McCabe went back in the house.
“I just got a call from Tommy Holmes,” Fortier told him.
“Who?”
“Tommy Holmes. He’s a detective on the South Portland PD. They just got a missing persons report. I suggest you follow up immediately.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Guy named Byron Knowles. Teacher at Penfield Academy. Teaches junior and senior English, so Aimée could’ve been one of his students. Knowles’s wife called it in to SoPo about forty-five minutes ago. She said her husband went to Whitby’s party last night. Took his own boat out there. Wife didn’t go cause she’s eight months pregnant, and just the thought of being on a boat makes her seasick. Anyway, he was supposed to be home by midnight . . .”
“And he never showed?”
“No. He texted her instead. At 2:21 in the morning.”
“Saying what?”
“Quote: ‘I can never forgive myself for the terrible things I have done. Please know that I have always loved you.’ ”
“Jesus. What’s that supposed to be? A suicide note?”
“Either that or a farewell. Suicide would be a little weird, though. Guy goes to a party and then kills himself? Most suicides don’t include merrymaking.”
“You don’t know your Bible,” said McCabe.
“What?”
“Isaiah 22:13. ‘And behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ ”
Chapter 29
MAGGIE WENT TO her car to wait for the call. It took seven minutes before she heard the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth. Da-da-da-dum. Caller ID said Private Caller. “This is Detective Margaret Savage,” she said. “Is this Mr. Whitby?”
“Yes. It is.” Another irritated voice. “Now, Detective, please tell me what’s so urgent that you’re waking me at the crack of dawn.”
“It’s about your daughter, sir. Aimée.”
“What about Aimée? Is she in some kind of trouble?”
“I’d rather speak to you about this in person.”
“I’m sure you would. But that’s not possible, since I’m on an island three miles out in the bay. If this is so urgent, why don’t we just forget about the niceties and you tell me what’s going on with Aimée? And please, try to make it quick.”
Taken aback by his abrasiveness, Maggie paused for a moment, then thought to herself, All right, Mr. Whitby, you want to forget about the niceties, we’ll forget about the niceties. “Your daughter is dead,” she said.
“What?”
“She was murdered early this morning just off the Loring Trail in Portland. Possibly raped before she was stabbed to death.”
“Dear God in heaven . . .”
There was a mo
ment of silence before Whitby spoke. “Could you hold on a minute? I need to check on something.”
“What?”
“Please, just hang on for a minute.”
Maggie stayed on the line for what turned out to be more like three minutes.
Whitby returned. “And she’s not at her mother’s?” he asked.
“No, sir,” said Maggie, certain McCabe would have let her know if a live Aimée had somehow turned up on Howard Street.
“I see. How sure are you that the person you found is Aimée?”
“One hundred percent,” said Maggie. “When was the last time you saw your daughter?”
“Give me a minute to absorb all this, will you? I feel like I’ve just been sucker-punched.”
So much for the man’s aggressiveness. Perhaps he’d now appreciate the niceties a little more. “Of course,” she said. “But the sooner we get the investigation underway, the better.”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
“Mr. Whitby?”
She heard Whitby let out a long, slow breath on the other end. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking how beautiful Aimée looked at the party last night.”
“What party?”
“We threw a large party on the island last night. To celebrate my two daughters’ graduation from Penfield Academy. Aimée and her sister, Julia. Both just starting out in life.” He paused, his voice choking up. “Now one of them’s gone.”
“And Aimée seemed okay last night?”
“Better than okay. She was positively glowing. I’ve never seen her looking so alive. Or so beautiful.”
“About what time did you last see your daughter, Mr. Whitby?” Maggie asked.
“Let me think. It was probably around ten thirty. Most of our guests had already left. I was chatting to some old friends. Aimée had changed out of the gown she was wearing and into some cutoffs and a sweatshirt . . .” Whitby’s voice quavered. He was finding it difficult to talk. He cleared his throat. Cleared it again. Finally continued. “She gave me a kiss and thanked me for being . . .” Another cough. “Shit. This is hard . . . the best daddy in the whole world.”